Vancouver Island
Victoria
The Victoria that's worth bothering with is very small: almost everything worth seeing, as well as the best shops and restaurants, is within walking distance in the Inner Harbour area and the Old Town district behind it. On summer evenings this area is alive with strollers and buskers, and a pleasure to wander as the sun drops over the water. Foremost amongst the daytime diversions are the Royal British Columbia Museum and the Empress Hotel . You might drop by the modest Maritime Museum and think about a trip to the celebrated Butchart Gardens , some way out of town, but easily accessed by public transport or regular all-inclusive tours from the bus terminal. If you're around for a couple of days you should also find time to walk around Beacon Hill Park, a few minutes' walk from downtown to the south.
The best of the area's beaches are well out of town on Hwy 14 and Hwy 1 , but for idling by the sea head down to the pebble shore along the southern edge of Beacon Hill Park. For some local swimming, the best option by far is Willows Beach on the Esplanade in Oak Bay, 2km east of Victoria; take bus #1 to Beach and Dalhousie Road. Other good stretches of sand can be found on Dallas Road and at Island View Beach.
Tofino and Long Beach
Most travellers' target base is the Pacific Rim National Park that includes Long Beach which truly is one of the natural wonders of the world.
The village of Tofino is keeping development to a minimum, clearly realizing they have a vested interest in preserving the salty, waterfront charm that brings people here in the first place. Crowning a narrow spit, the village is bounded on three sides by tree-covered islands and water, gracing it with magnificent views. Offering a wide variety of boat and sea-plane tours, most of which have a whale-watching or fishing angle or provide a means to get out to islands and hot springs close by . During the summer hippies, surfer types and easy-going family groups are the most visible visitors.
Parksville and Qualicum Beach
The approach to Parksville from the south is promising, taking you through lovely wooded dunes, with lanes striking off eastwards to hidden beaches and a half-dozen secluded campsites . Four kilometres on is the best of the beaches, stretched along 2km of Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park . In summer this area is madness - there's more beach action here than just about anywhere in the country - and if you want to lay claim to some of the park's camping space (summer $18.50, winter $8) expect to start queuing first thing in the morning or take advantage of the provincial park reservations service . The public sand here stretches for 2km and sports all the usual civilized facilities of Canada's tamed outdoors: cooking shelters, picnic spots and walking trails.
Golfers can tee off on any of the 6 exceptional and scenic golf courses in the area including the Morningstar Golf Club in Parksville and the Fairwinds Golf and Country Club in nearby Nanoose Bay.
Qualicum Beach, "is to the artist of today what Stratford-on-Avon was to the era of Shakespeare" - a bohemian enclave of West Coast artists and writers that has also been dubbed the "Carmel of the North" after the town in California. Compared to Parksville the area has more greenery and charm, and it's infinitely less commercialized, though it probably has just as many summer visitors.
Campbell River
Of the hundred or so Canadian towns that claim to be "Salmon Capital of the World", Campbell River, on Northeast Vancouver Island, is probably the one that comes closest to justifying the boast. Fish and fishing dominate the place to a ludicrous degree, and you'll soon be heartily sick of pictures of grinning anglers holding impossibly huge chinook salmon. Massive shoals of these monsters are forced into the three-kilometre channel between the town and the mainland, making the job of catching them little more than a formality. The town grew to accommodate fishermen from the outset, centred on a hotel built in 1904 after word spread of the colossal fish that local Cape Mudge natives were able to pluck from the sea. Today about sixty percent of all visitors come to dangle a line in the water. Others come for the scuba diving, while for the casual visitor the place serves as the main road access to the wilds of Strathcona Provincial Park or an overnight stop en route for the morning departures of the MV Uchuck III from Gold River.